Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I Hate Being Tagged

The Rules:1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs4. Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog

Does anyone not a blogger realize how much time one has to spend to find these other bloggers, find a post to leave a comment on, leave the comment on (getting past security or signing in or whatever) and getting out? (P.S. This tok me 45 minutes to compose).

And, shall I admit I am strange or weird?

If you can't figure that out from my blog posts, why should I tell you?

But, I will be a good enough of a sport to make some statements:

1. My first fight was when I was about 5 years of age when some Spanish-speaking kids caught me in the schoolyard of P.S. 75 in the Bronx and tried to steal my new tricycle. I won.

2. In January 1967, while searching for lost friends from the Machon program, I accidentally crossed the Egyptain border just south-west of Eilat.

3. I met with Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveichik zt"l in the fall of 1968 with two other friends from Betar in order to pressure him to rescind the SOY invitation of Lord Caradon, Britain's UN Ambassador (and the former Sir Hugh Foot, previously District Commissioner for Nablus during the British Palestine Mandate in 1937). He met with us to stop the campaign we were running aginst the event. The invitation was rescinded.

4. I was once summoned to a police station as a Juvenile Delinquent while at Yeshiva Preparatory High School, aka Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills. The Yeshiva had been attacked by antisemites and a policeman was on duty when I tossed a snowball at a friend through an open school window (I pitched fairly well and quite accurately). My father was quite angry, really very angry, but we managed to get out of the ridiculous predicament.

5. I met my future wife when I sat down next to her on the sidewalk outside the Soviet UN Delgation offices in Manhattan while participating in a Tisha B'Av Fast activity on behalf of Russian Jews organized by SSSJ. That was in August 1967, about a week after my return from my year in Israel. It was quite a 'pickup' as I didn't ask her out on a date until the following April, I think. (You pick the more weird aspect of that)

6. And while on the subject of Soviet Jewry, on all-night demonstrations, my parents and aunt & uncle would always show up around midnight with hot drinks and cookies, etc. And when I was detained for almost an hour at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in November 1976, the only excuse I could think of to explain to my fellow tour group travellers without arousing suspicions about what George Evnine and I were really going to do during the next four days was to tell them I had been caught with a copy of...Playboy.

7. I really miss writing op-eds for the Los Angeles Times. The pay then was $250 and twice I had to deliver within just a few hours. Once I ended up typing on a blank sheet of paper, under which was carbon paper under which was another blank page. My typewriter (you know, those ancient writing implements before the PC) had no ribbon and that was the only way I could get it out and faxed.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.